


quick time

by flowermasters



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2000s, Bathroom Sex, Blink and you'll miss it Daddy Kink, Hook-Up, M/M, Pining, Sambucky Bingo 2019, Semi-Public Sex, Time Loop, bucky needs an 'if lost please return to sam wilson' t-shirt, chaos and thottery abounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:54:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: He’s never bought Sam a drink in any of the other loops—all ten of them, now. Maybe he should’ve tried that earlier.Companion todouble back.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 33
Kudos: 245





	quick time

**Author's Note:**

> Never accuse me of not giving the people what they want, which is apparently slutty mid-aughts Sam Wilson.
> 
> Many thanks again to [ts_smelliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ts_smelliot/pseuds/ts_smelliot) for letting me spam her DMs with all of this.
> 
> You don't *technically* need to have read [double back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22487395) to follow this--it's pretty cut-and-dried, really--but if you're going to, I would recommend you read that one FIRST. 
> 
> If you don't mind spoiling a surprise, just know: thanks to a quantum experiment gone awry, Bucky is stuck in a time loop in 2007 with Sam, who, of course, has no idea who he is and doesn't remember him from night to night. 
> 
> Bucky is Suffering™️, as you might imagine.

Sam’s been waiting for the bartender to notice him for nearly five minutes. 

This happens every time, but Bucky can’t help but be amused by it still, the way Sam’s neutral expression gradually edges into sulky impatience. Twenty-five-year-old Sam just _bores_ so much more easily than his older self does, making it something of a challenge for Bucky to entertain him night after night without repeating himself.

Admittedly, this is the kind of challenge Bucky thrills at.

He makes his way through the tightly-packed crowd, wending his way around the bar until he can sidle up to it. His elbow brushes Sam’s. Sam doesn’t notice, too focused on the bartender as he finally approaches. 

“A whiskey,” Bucky cuts in, loud enough to be heard over the throb of the music, something wordless and electronic. “Neat. And the same for me.”

He has to suppress a smile as Sam’s head jerks to the right to look at him, and very nearly laughs when Sam says, “What—?”

When he can control his facial expression, Bucky glances over at Sam, who is watching him in the artificial blue light. Obnoxious as it is, Bucky much prefers the lighting now to later; the strobe lights kick in in full force around one A.M., and that never fails to make him feel sort of cagey, on-edge. This Sam never seems comfortable when Bucky gets that way, and Bucky can’t exactly blame him. He doesn’t have the years’ worth of training—not to mention personal experience—that his older self does.

Sam looks good in this light. It bounces invitingly off his cheekbones, his hair, the points of his collarbones, just peeking out at the neckline of his tight black t-shirt. A thin chain gleams silver against his neck. It’s that touch, the absolutely unnecessary dog tags, that makes him seem like such a cocky son of a bitch. Bucky finds it unutterably charming.

“Thanks, I guess,” Sam says dryly, or as dryly as he can when his voice is raised to nearly a shout. “Out of curiosity, what made you go for whiskey?”

Sam drinks either whiskey or beer, depending on his mood; Bucky knew that long before he got stuck in a quantum loop with a younger version of him. 

Sam’s mood on this night is whiskey-flavored, dark and smoky. “Lucky guess,” Bucky says.

Sam raises his eyebrows. “You’re a presumptuous kind of guy.”

“Well,” Bucky says, as the bartender returns with two glasses, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

Sam grins, sly and familiar, and reaches for a glass. It took Bucky a few days of this madness to adjust to his face without facial hair. He looks so much _younger_ without it, almost like a different person. But it is Sam, of course—Sam’s eyes and voice and cheeky, gap-toothed smile. His eyelashes have their same sweet curl.

Bucky misses the goatee, though. It suits him.

“Maybe,” Sam says, and takes a sip. “You gonna guess my star sign next?”

Bucky pauses for a second, calling to mind what he knows about astrology, which is, unfortunately, very little. He does, however, know a substantial amount of Sam-related trivia. “Leo?”

Sam laughs and leans an elbow against the bar. “Goddamn,” he drawls. “You _are_ smooth with it.”

“I try,” Bucky says, although really, it’s been a very long time since he tried anything of the sort. He probably should’ve tried _it_ on Sam a long time ago, well before he agreed to put on a goddamn fancy get-up and go traveling through quantum space.

Sam’s here with his sister and a group of her friends; they’re at a table ten yards away, Sarah easily recognizable even through the crowd for the heart-shaped face and pretty, sleepy eyes she shares with her brother. Bucky hasn’t asked, but he suspects that Sam is slightly more inclined to talk to strangers on this night because he’s only tagging along with a bunch of college kids. 

Sometimes, at this juncture, Sam will glance back at the table; tonight, he doesn’t. His eyes glint, almost mischievously, as he takes another sip of his drink. Bucky feels like the ground has shifted underneath him, just slightly. He’s never bought Sam a drink in any of the other loops—all ten of them, now. Maybe he should’ve tried that earlier.

“You from the city?” Sam asks, leaning in to shout this near Bucky’s ear; it’s not necessary, but it lets Bucky get a faint whiff of his cologne. Sam no longer favors this specific scent in 2024, but it’s Sam-like enough, warm and rich with a hint of sweetness.

“Brooklyn,” Bucky says. Then, because it’s expected, “You?”

A man bumps into Sam from behind, jostling past him to get closer to the bar. It’s unnecessary—Sam is sturdy enough to take the light shove with grace—but Bucky puts a steadying hand on his elbow anyway, just for a moment. 

Sam smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “You here by yourself?”

“I was,” Bucky says. “But then I saw you.”

If he were here, the older Sam would’ve rolled his eyes at that—this Sam laughs. “You make it sound like you were waiting on me,” he says. 

_I was_ , Bucky thinks, but he can’t say that—Sam would question it. He feels almost anxious, his pulse elevated, but not necessarily in a bad way; this is new, this conversation, without all the formalities they usually have to get through. _Where are you from, who’re you here with, oh, you’re visiting your sister_ , all the bullshit that Bucky’s heard many times over by now. 

Sam’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before. Which is technically true, but—this feels different.

“Maybe I was just a little lonesome,” Bucky says, holding Sam’s gaze. “You looked like you could use a drink, anyway.”

As Bucky watches, Sam lifts the glass to his mouth and throws the rest of the drink back. Then he leans in to be heard better. “Could use something else, too,” he says. “I think there’s a bathroom upstairs.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, sort of dumbly, wondering if he’s somehow misheard.

Sam raises his eyebrows, his expression a milder form of the _what are you, stupid?_ look that Bucky is quite accustomed to, and then Bucky clues in. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah, I—alright.”

Sam smiles, pleased, and then he’s gone, weaving through the crowd to get to the narrow staircase to the left of the bar. Bucky gives him a thirty-second head start, taking the opportunity to gulp his drink—it won’t do anything, but he can’t conscience wasting it—before he follows. His pulse pounds in his ears, nearly matching the volume of the bass. He bumps into a girl near the foot of the staircase and barely wastes time on an apology, just presses onward through the throng. 

In Bucky’s day, they had codes, in-the-know bars and parks and alleys, and those sorts of things definitely exist in 2007, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what or where they are. This bar is sleazy, sure, with a thin, sticky layer of glittery grime all over everything, maybe all over everyone. There are couples of all sorts in various entanglements around the joint, but it still seems like—doing whatever it is Sam seems to be inviting him to do would still be frowned upon.

All in all, it still doesn’t seem like a place Sam would favor. But Sam is here, and Sam’s asking. Bucky goes.

The balcony area is substantially less crowded than the downstairs, but Bucky has something of a knack for creeping about unseen; he finds the bathrooms tucked in a back corner, deserted by virtue of being out of the way. He knocks once on the men’s room door, heart in his throat, and then, just like that, Sam lets him in.

It’s a single bathroom, tiny and damp and yellow-lit, fortunately not too much of a mess at this relatively early hour; Bucky has spent enough time in this place to have seen a reasonable amount of depravity. He has the presence of mind to lock the door behind him, and then he looks at Sam, standing just three feet away in the small space, and—has no idea what to do next.

“I mean no offense,” Sam says, his tone surprisingly calm. “But is there anything I should know about your hand?”

Bucky glances down at his left hand reflexively. Gloved, of course, with the rest of his arm covered by his sleeve. Sam, he thinks, is giving him an out, in case he doesn’t want to be touched there. “No,” he says, lifting his gaze. “It’s, uh, nothing you need to worry about.”

Two loops ago, he showed Sam the arm—that was much later in the night, after Sam invited Bucky to join their group at the 24-hour diner down the block. Sam had been drunk enough then to ask, politely, to touch it. Bucky had watched as Sam brushed his fingers lightly down his forearm, presumably unaware that Bucky could feel his touch. 

Bucky shivers a little thinking of it now. Bucky hasn’t seen Sam’s older self quite so drunk before, but he gets that way even when he’s buzzed, warm and cozy-eyed and tactile. He’s never touched Bucky like that before, though, not with such—fascination. 

This Sam is not drunk. He’s clear-eyed, expectant, and presumably interested in a different sort of touch. Bucky swallows. “How do you want to do this?”

Sam goes for his jeans pocket, fishing his wallet out easily. Bucky watches, almost numb with shock, as Sam takes out a condom, puts his wallet away, then reaches in the other pocket, from which he pulls a small foil packet of what is undoubtedly lubricant. All told, this maneuvering takes five seconds, maybe less.

“I’m good for anything,” Sam says, still in that infuriatingly calm tone, “but I was hoping you’d tell me.” 

Bucky feels like his brain might be short-circuiting, like every bit of traffic up there has screeched to a halt for this, this realization, this moment. “You—you’ve been carrying that around this whole time?” he blurts.

Sam raises his eyebrows, no doubt a bit confused by this question. “Well,” he drawls. “It was a long shot. But I like to be prepared for every outcome, you know?”

 _Every outcome_. This is the exact sort of line Sam would use to bullshit Bucky into going over the plan _one last time_ , even when they’ve been poring over blueprints for hours; hearing it now, in this context, makes Bucky want to—lose it, just a little bit. It’s almost like fury, the feeling that floods him, but it’s not; it’s lust, it’s pure, fierce, raging _want_ , the desire for Sam that he’s been carrying around like a pebble in his shoe for months now, maybe years, ever since he first started to notice things like Sam’s smile and Sam’s shoulders and his dark, clever eyes. This Sam, arrogant and handsome and with no idea what he’s dealing with, _who_ he’s dealing with—Bucky wants to mess him up a bit. Just enough for Sam to feel it like he does. 

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says, and crosses the two short steps it takes to back Sam up against the sink. Sam allows this, although even now he’s big enough, strong enough, that he probably thinks he could take Bucky, if it came down to it. “Don’t bullshit me, baby, you knew exactly what you wanted tonight.”

Sam is so smug, so goddamn _smug_. “You think so?” he says with a smile. “Now which one of us is the lucky guesser?” 

Bucky kisses him, lightly at first, and Sam turns it biting, messy; Bucky can do that. It feels like riding a bicycle, the way it comes back. Or maybe like swimming, like he might die if he stops.

Sam breaks for air, and now he looks like he’s getting it, a little bit, his eyes gone slightly wide. He lets Bucky press him more firmly against the porcelain edge of the sink. “Yeah, you were hoping for some rough trade, weren’t you,” Bucky says. “I can do that for you, sweetheart.”

It comes out weirdly earnest, but only because he does mean it; he’ll do anything to please Sam, any iteration of him, any version of Sam that will give him the time of day. He’s known that, on some level, for a lot longer than he’s been stuck here.

“Put me up against the wall,” Sam says, his voice gone low. He licks his lower lip, a seemingly unconscious gesture. “You want to?”

Bucky does. He turns them away from the sink, backs Sam against the adjacent wall, and kisses him again; Sam allows this for a moment, then breaks the kiss and turns away. “No,” he says, “like this.”

Bucky immediately takes the opportunity to grind against Sam’s ass; the rough press of denim—or, thanks to the quantum suit, the illusion of denim—against his dick is very nearly his undoing. He bites the side of Sam’s neck just to hear him gasp. 

“Here,” Sam mumbles, fumbling the condom and the lube into Bucky’s hand. Then he grabs at his belt, undoing it so that he can push his jeans and boxer-briefs down just far enough. 

Bucky can hear his heart in his ears again. He follows Sam’s lead, unzipping his not-jeans and getting his dick out, giving himself a few clumsy, largely unnecessary strokes. He’s already so hard his vision has gone floaty around the edges; he truly cannot remember ever being this hot for it before, and he’s got at least a vague idea of how much sex he used to have before everything went to shit. 

He presses forward, brushing against one cheek of Sam’s ass, and Sam says, “Oh, _shit_.”

“Not too late to back out,” Bucky says. His voice is much grittier than he expects, even to his own ears.

“No,” Sam says, looking over his shoulder. He licks his bottom lip again. “Do it.”

Bucky hastens to comply; he fumbles the condom on and slicks up with a hand that would be trembling if all the tremble hadn’t been burnt out of him. Sam shifts his weight, grunts in assent to Bucky’s mumble of “you ready,” and exhales a long, shaky breath as Bucky starts to press in.

It’s tight, it’s too much, it has to be hurting him; Bucky stops moving halfway in, petting at Sam’s broad chest with his left hand while his right rests on Sam’s bare hip. Sam’s skin is warm to the touch, every part of him burning hot. “Is this alright?” Bucky asks, his voice gone embarrassingly breathy. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Sam grits out, “just do it, get in me, come on.”

Bucky eases the rest of the way in, then gives a few cautious thrusts; to his surprise, Sam rocks back against him, fumbling one hand backwards to catch at Bucky’s hip and urge him on. The other hand he keeps braced, palm flat, against the tiled wall. “Come _on_ ,” he says. “You’re not going to break me.”

Bucky could, but he would never, at least not really. It would tear him up worse. He does exert a tiny bit of pressure around Sam’s chest, urging him to arch his back, giving Bucky the leverage to thrust more sharply into him. Sam moans openly, loudly, as though Bucky’s finally giving him what he wants. Bucky feels like he might go up in flames, but he just fucks Sam even harder, shaking those noises out of him.

“Fuck,” Sam gasps out. “Uh-huh, like that, daddy, just like that—”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Bucky says, absolutely positive that if Sam gets out another word he’s going to come on the spot. He moves his left hand from the center of Sam’s chest and puts it clumsily over Sam’s mouth and chin, trying to muffle him, then somehow ends up with two gloved fingers in Sam’s mouth. Sam groans around them, not in protest but in pleasure, and now there’s no way this isn’t going to end quickly.

“Touch yourself,” Bucky says, right in Sam’s ear, “c’mon, do it now.”

Sam complies, taking his hand off the wall to do so. The sensation in the vibranium arm is already not quite like a real one—it’s less attuned to pain, for instance, but still finely manipulable—but Bucky can still feel it, even through the glove, the hot wetness of Sam’s mouth and the vibration of his groans. Sam clenches up tight, his breath going whiny and gasping as he comes. Bucky wonders if his Sam would moan like this for it, if he would take it this sweetly, and groans, spiraling, coming hard enough that he stops thinking altogether.

His hips twitch in shaky thrusts until the sensation becomes overwhelming and he stills, buried deep. For a moment they just stand there, both of them breathing heavily, Bucky’s head bowed so that his forehead rests on Sam’s shoulder. “Shit,” Bucky manages finally. “Jesus, Sam.” 

Sam squirms then, probably in an effort to politely get Bucky to let up. Bucky’s practically crushing him up against the wall now. He pulls out slowly, carefully, and steps back, giving Sam room to hitch up his pants and get away from the wall.

Sam moves to the sink as Bucky trashes the condom and zips up his jeans; when Bucky glances up, he finds Sam looking at him askance in the mirror as he washes his hands. He doesn’t look nearly as pleased or relaxed as Bucky would’ve hoped—instead his brow furrows slightly, an expression Bucky privately calls his thinking face.

 _Oh, fuck,_ Bucky thinks, meeting Sam’s eyes in the reflection. _His name. I never asked him his fucking name—_

“Saw your dog tags,” Bucky says, nodding at the mirror; in the reflection, the tags glint against Sam’s chest, having been shaken free from his shirt at some point. “D’you go by Samuel?”

Sam blinks. “Uh, no,” he says, turning off the water from the faucet and, finding the paper towel dispenser empty, shaking his wet hands over the sink. “Just Sam.”

Sam’s not stupid enough to buy this, not by a long shot, but Bucky proceeds as though he is; he’s found you can convince people of a lot of things that way. “I figured,” he says. “I’m Bucky.” 

Sam raises his eyebrows as he turns. “Huh. That’s, uh, not a name you hear often.”

Bucky smiles, but doesn’t really mean it. Awkwardness settles in, sudden and unstoppable, and the space is too small for there to be any hope of escaping it. “No, I guess not.”

Sam, fortunately, could charm a brick wall, and doesn’t seem fazed by this. He moves for the door, his steps light and steady, and Bucky shifts to let him pass, supposing they ought not to leave together, all things considered. “Well, Bucky,” Sam says, drawling Bucky’s name in a way that feels distinctly like a tease, “thanks again for the drink.”

“And the good, hard fucking, I’m sure,” Bucky says, meeting Sam’s eyes. “You looked like you could use that, too.”

Sam pauses with his hand on the doorknob and grins jauntily. Bucky, instead of feeling pleased, feels suddenly, perilously close to—tears, of all things. 

“Baby, I’m not the only one,” Sam says, seeming not to notice, or else too polite to mention it. “See you around.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, and Sam leaves, shutting the door behind him. 

It’s not really a silence that follows, not with the throb of the music that, though muffled, still seems to vibrate up under his skin, but Bucky feels a hollow sort of quietude settle into him anyways. He washes his hands quickly and doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as he does so, wary of what he might see there. Then he checks his watch. It’s very nearly midnight; he still has a few hours, then, to find a place to eat and shower, maybe catch some shut-eye before the loop resets and he finds himself behind the dumpsters out back again.

Nobody seems to have noticed anything amiss when he leaves the bathroom, not that he would’ve expected them to—would it matter if anyone had? He has to ease past dancing couples and giggling drunks at every turn on the way back downstairs. He can’t help but look, just briefly, in the direction of Sam’s friends’ table as he makes for the front door. They’re gone, presumably having moved to the crowded dance floor by now. Tonight’s Sam is nowhere to be found. 

Despite everything—despite the fact that he’ll almost certainly be living this night over again—Bucky wishes he could get one last look, even if he won’t see what he wants to see. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sam's a Leo because I say so. Feel free to sound off in the comments, though!


End file.
